PhysMath Central Blog
Hi all,
We'll be coming to the annual Biophysical Society meeting in San Francisco this weekend. Come and visit us on stand #729 to talk about the benefits of open access to biophysical research and also to grab one of our cool Rubik's cubes. We'll also be twittering away whilst we're there with hashtag #BPS2010 from our new PhysMath Central twitter account, @physmathcentral
We hope to see you there!
Chris, Sally & Harpreet
PhysMath Central
Posted by Chris Leonard at 16:04 Comments (0)
Not even wrong: a disassembly of impact factors and indices
An editorial in Europhysics News (http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/epn/2009704) caught my eye recently as it is one of the few dissections of impact factors I have read which applies some scientific and logical thinking to the process of awarding impact factors to journals or individuals.
The authors, Franck Laloë and Remy Mosseri, tackle some the assumptions made in the bibliometry game and come out with a few startling suggestions for how to maximize your own h-index.
Central to their point is the real purpose of references within scientific articles. They are not, they argue, some sort of prize list among all published articles in the relevant scientific domain. Rather, their real purpose is to give the reader information that is needed to understand the article. In context a citation could be made to; another article which describes much of the background (e.g. review articles), similar articles (to simplify writing and avoid tensions with colleagues), 'wrong' articles (in case of corrections) and articles describing instrumentation and methods.
Looking at impact factors derived from the SCI, the following problems were identified by the authors:
1 - Books are not counted towards impact factors, despite the fact that they are often the best way of making a big impact within a given field.
2 - Whether you are a lone author or a coauthor with several other people, the citation is counted as the same for each person. Why not, they ask, divide citations by the number of authors of an individual paper?
3 - Short-termism: examine the longevity of ideas by only looking at citations from 3 years or more.
4 - Data input is not homogenous over time and there are inevitable human errors in inputting/correcting it
They argue that the real reason for the success of impact factors is based on facility - saving time for in-depth evaluations of journals and, especially, individuals. They then give a tongue in cheek 'recipe for success' in which your research is geared towards improving your h-index:
1 - Work in same group of 5-6 colleagues who publisher their articles in common
2 - Don't take too much scientific risk, choose to work in larger scientific domains
3 - Don't waste time publishing books
4 - When you write articles, remember that public relations are important.
I leave the final word to the authors:
Finally, it seems that the faith in these indices is not very different from something that escapes rationality. One could compare this with astrology and numerology, which pretend to be scientific but have never gone through the process of scientific selection.
Posted by Chris Leonard at 12:10 Comments (0)
LaTeX is something of a misnomer in publishing in the 21st century. On the one hand a language to render and position text on a printed page is solving a problem which is largely solved today - but the markup of equations and mathematical symbols is rarely bettered.
Given a large corpus of existing material is already in LaTeX, then this development from Springer [disclaimer: Springer own BioMed Central and PhysMath Central] could be potentially enlightening for those whose work can be expressed in equations. A LaTeX search engine finds equations or part-equations across all of Springer's published articles. Very useful for finding a particular approach to solving some engineering problem, say, has already been described in the mathematical literature.
Check the example searches and give your own a whirl.
Posted by Chris Leonard at 12:34 Comments (0)
It has been a busy time for us in the BioMed / Chemistry /PhysMath Central offices recently. There is a major redesign of the sites afoot and the first signs of things to come have just been revealed. The BioMed Central journal Genome Medicine is the first of our journals to have a facelift and be presented to the world in its new guise.
The PhysMath Central journals will follow soon, followed by the rest of the site thereafter. We hope you enjoy our new look and the new functionality which will follow.
Posted by Chris Leonard at 12:41 Comments (0)
Good news for OA from Netherlands
“The NWO wants scientific and scholarly publications to be freely accessible to everyone on the Internet. The organisation will provide five million euros to cover the cost of this kind of publication. This is a major policy shift for the NWO. Moreover, NWO chairman Jos Engelen has made an urgent appeal to leading scientists and scholars not to publish their articles in the established journals but to place them in an Internet journal.”
Read more here: http://www.surffoundation.nl/en/actueel/Pages/NWOtoogoesforOpenAccesstopublications.aspx
Posted by Chris Leonard at 17:59 Comments (0)
Nobel Prize winners urge US open access to federally funded research
"The open availability of federally funded research for broad public use in open online archives is a crucial building block in laying a strong national foundation to support accelerated discovery and innovation. It encourages broader participation in the scientific process by providing equitable access to high-quality research results to researchers at higher education institutions of all kinds – from research-intensive universities to community colleges alike. It can empower more members of the public to become engaged in citizen science efforts in areas that pique their imagination. It will equip entrepreneurs and small business owners with the very latest research developments, allowing them to more effectively compete in the development of new technologies and innovations. Open availability of this research will expand the worldwide visibility of the research conducted in the U.S. and increase the impact of our collective investment in research."
Read full text here: http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/supporters/scientists/nobelists_2009.shtml
Posted by Chris Leonard at 17:34 Comments (0)
PMC Comics - The Other Side of the Mobius Strip 1
Last but certainly not least, let us introduce 'The Other Side of the Mobius Strip' from Beatrice Downing, a biologist working with our sister company F1000:
Let us know what you think, and send us your efforts!
Posted by Morag Hickman at 14:54 Comments (0)
PMC Comics - Critical Rations 1
The second of our three strips introduces Ross Hopkins: author, artist, and incidentally a Production Editor for BioMed Central. Click the image for a larger version.
Posted by Morag Hickman at 15:30 Comments (0)
How much of arXiv goes on to be peer-reviewed and published?
Sorry the not-so-snappy title, but this is a question someone asked me yesterday: How many papers on arXiv eventually end up published in a peer-reviewed journal? I had to confess I had no idea.
Tim Ingoldsby of the AIP has done some fantastic work recently in working out the reverse of this, how many papers in published journals are also available on arXiv.org [answer: it varies wildly across sub-disciplines but averages out to around 40%]. I emailed Tim, but he didn't have the information for this particular question.
So has there ever been any work done on signal-to-noise in arXiv? ['noise' may be a little unfair, but you get my drift]. If there isn't - then a Friday afternoon project may well have presented itself to me!
Posted by Chris Leonard at 10:23 Comments (0)
We're here at the XXIV International Symposium on Lepton and Photon Interactions at High Energies in the CCH Convention Center in Hamburg. Come and visit the PhysMath Central stand on your break for some surprisingly refreshing giveaways!
Posted by Chris Leonard at 10:13 Comments (0)
We were very pleased to hold the inaugural PhysMath Central Rubik's cube competition at the recent ICPEAC meeting in Kalamazoo. The aim was to solve a PMC-branded Rubik's cube the fastest, and the winner was Allan Landers from Auburn University in Alabama. Here is the happy winner with his solved cube and his prize, an iPod Nano.
Posted by Chris Leonard at 13:12 Comments (0)
PMC Comics - Spherical Chickens 1
PhysMath Central will henceforth be publishing a physics-related comic every Tuesday. We will be cycling through three strips, starting with the first offering from myself and PhD student Sam Cook.
Let us know what you think, and send us your efforts - you never know, we might publish them!
Click the image for a larger version.
Posted by Morag Hickman at 15:54 Comments (0)